The Power Line

Potato Patch Prospecting - The Sequel

The potatoes are ready for pickin'? Has Bonnie sponsored her first Rep yet?

What Can a Potato Patch Teach You About Prospecting?

The other day, Bonnie, a new distributor expressed her frustration about prospecting. She's working her business consistently, doing all of the right things, but no one has joined her yet. I love teaching with metaphors...watch this video to hear my Potato Patch Metaphor that I told Bonnie.

I would LOVE to hear your comments below! What would you tell Bonnie and other new distributors as they're just getting started?

Saturday Morning Emergency Call

It's 7:30 am on Saturday morning; I'm in a deep luxurious dream sleep and the phone rings. If you're like me, the first thing flashing through your mind is, "oh no, it must be an emergency! For what other earthly reason would anyone call at this hour on a weekend?" My second thought,"please don't be about one of the kids!"

I stumble out of bed, grab my robe and run to the kitchen  where the answering machine is blinking and listen to the following message, "Hello Monteforte's, this is your neighbor Jamie Holmes. We have two donkeys loose on our property, up by the pond. One's bigger than the other and they're black with white noses, are they yours?"
 
"Ugh!" I groan, Delilah and baby Holly have decided to take a field trip. Looks like I'll have to fore-go coffee in the hot tub in exchange for an early morning round-up..."at least nothing's wrong with either of the human kids," I say, trying to look at the bright side.

Pat and I pull on our jeans, sweatshirts and hiking boots, grab the halters, ropes and oats and trek out to find the critters' escape route. We'll have to bring them back in the way they got out.

Pat machete's our way through the brush and as we scale the bank just below the pond we see the cute little devils way over yonder in our neighbors yard, grazing happily (the grass is always greener).
 

To cut a rather long chase story short, we spend the next  hour and a half herding the donkeys through two pastures and down the bank to our property, over and over and over again. Every time we just about get them through the opening in the fence, they freak out over the prospect of crossing the wire
mesh and run off up the bank again.
 
We do manage to get a halter and lead on Delilah, the mommy donkey but you've heard the term, "stubborn as a mule"? I know, donkeys are not mules but they can be just as stubborn and a scared mama donkey can also be dangerous. Our neighbor said Delilah chased them right up the porch protecting Holly. Delilah is now mad and rearing up on her hind legs!

Plan B: Pat decides to work on getting Holly, the baby, through the opening first. So he entices her with some oats and sneaks the halter on and then man handles her through the opening. Meanwhile Dalila is snorting and looking like she'd like to charge right through me!
 
Now on the other side of the opening, back on our property, Holly bellows a baby-sized hee haw for her mama. That's just the encouragement Delilah needs, along with a few light smacks to her bottom, and Pat pulls her through. Mama and baby are reunited and I run off to get them some hay while Pat repairs the fence.
 

I learn so much from our animals, besides the obvious of  keeping the fences in good repair! While standing on the bank for the better part of an hour, waving my arms to keep the donkeys from running back up to the field, I thought to myself, this is a great marketing metaphor (I know, I'm weird!).
 
How many times do we have really great prospects right within our reach but no matter how hard we try they just seem so  elusive to us? It may feel like we're just chasing them  around in circles as they check out other businesses (so-called greener pastures) and then just when we think they're  with us, they bolt and disappear!
 
What I realized standing there taking in the entire experience this morning, is the donkeys, just like our  prospects really do want to join us. They're just scared of crossing that fence. It's up to us to maintain persistent follow-through with patient reassurance that they can do it, that it's the best thing for them and it's our job to show them how!

And just as with the donkeys, it doesn't even hurt to bribe them with a little with an extra incentive(oats). Realizing that, I gained a true appreciation of Pat's technique of pulling baby Holly through first, knowing that the BIG ONE, Delilah would follow. If you learn nothing else from my donkey adventure, this is it! Sometimes to get the leader, you must first get the followers. This technique is also known as, "lighting the twigs to ignite the log."
 
We've done this many times in our networking career. For  example, once I was prospecting an experienced leader and she was interested but I just couldn't get her closed. We happened to have three other associates in common so what I  did was close all of them first and then call her and offer to   place her first and all of them in her downline if she joined right then. That was just the incentive (oats) she needed to finally commit.
 
It works! If you don't believe me, just ask Delilah!
 
Dedicated to Your Success!

Power Gal :-)

P.S. Update...we received another phone call late that afternoon that Delilah and Holly were out again! Pat had fixed the fence but they found another opening! What's the metaphor here? Please leave your comments below!!!